The US attorney
general, Jeff Sessions, on Thursday was forced to defend himself
against revelations that he had not disclosed meetings with Russian
officials that occurred during the presidential campaign last year.
Top Democrats are now calling for his resignation and Republicans
want a full investigation. Here’s what we know so far
Is
Russia connection destined to be Trump administration's Watergate?
As
more details emerge of meetings with Ambassador Sergey Kislyak and TV
hosts have a field day, the scandal seems unlikely to disappear soon
David Smith in
Washington
Friday 3 March 2017
19.45 GMT
Donald Trump flew
out of Washington on Friday but was unable to leave a gathering storm
of allegations, intrigue and unanswered questions about his ties to
Russia behind him.
The US president’s
joint address to Congress this week was well received but was rapidly
overshadowed by revelations that his attorney general, Jeff Sessions,
had twice spoken with the Russian ambassador during last year’s
presidential election.
As it has emerged
that other members of the Trump campaign – including his son-in-law
Jared Kushner – also met with the ambassador, Sergey Kislyak, the
Kremlin connection seems destined to be the putative scandal that
will not go away for the White House.
The relentless
drip-drip of evidence has prompted comparisons with the Watergate
affair that felled President Richard Nixon. It has also become
regular sport for comedians on late-night TV.
In Florida, the
president was due to visit a school and meet Republican leaders on
Friday but Democrats kept up the pressure in Washington. They argued
that Sessions’ meetings with the ambassador contradicted his own
sworn statements to Congress during his confirmation hearing.
Sessions claimed on Thursday that he met the ambassador in his
capacity as a senator, not as a campaign surrogate.
On Friday, the White
House tried to steer criticism of Trump associates and their meetings
with Russian officials away, by drawing parallels with Senate
minority leader Chuck Schumer, who was photographed meeting with the
Russian president, Vladimir Putin, in 2003.
In a characteristic
diversionary tactic, Trump tweeted an old photo of Schumer and Putin
smiling and snacking together with the message: “We should start an
immediate investigation into @SenSchumer and his ties to Russia and
Putin. A total hypocrite!”
Schumer swiftly
replied: “Happily talk re: my contact w Mr. Putin & his
associates, took place in ’03 in full view of press & public
under oath. Would you &your team?
Speaking to
reporters, the White House deputy press secretary Sarah Sanders
echoed the president: “I mean Chuck Schumer sitting and having
drinks with Putin and that’s not a news story, but apparently a
volunteer for a campaign bumping into one at a conference where
there’s, again, dozens of other ambassadors is newsworthy.”
Nancy Pelosi, the
House minority leader, said the attorney general’s decision to
recuse himself from an investigation into Russian-backed hackers’
interference in last year’s presidential election did not go far
enough.
“Everybody knew
that there was something completely out of order that was going on,
so for him to say, well, I was just meeting with him in the normal
course of a senator meeting with an ambassador, the Russian
ambassador, everybody knew was hacking our system is beyond naive,”
she told an event organised by Politico in Washington. “It’s
almost pathetic. It’s almost pathetic.
“So he did not
tell the truth, and now it has come out that he did not tell the
truth, and now what you see is there are other people in the Trump
administration who have met with the Russian ambassador, in view of
some one of the biggest intelligence officers of the Russian
government, in Washington DC.”
Some US media
reports have suggested that Kislyak acts as a spy recruiter, a charge
that Moscow has ridiculed as paranoia.
Pelosi added: “So
this recusal is an admission that something went on but it’s not
sufficient. There are two things. One is the recusal as a surrogate
of then candidate Trump’s campaign and having communication with
the Russian government knowing they were hacking our system. That’s
what the recusal is about, however narrow it is.
“The other part of
it is the possibility of perjury, which is punishable by law for
anybody else. Certainly we should have that be standard for the
highest-ranking law enforcement person in our country.”
Sessions, who was
the first senator to endorse Trump for president, told his
confirmation hearing in January that he “did not have
communications with the Russians” and did not know of any by other
campaign staff.
Democrats have
variously called on him to recuse himself from all potential
investigations, retestify before Congress, resign or be charged with
perjury, while demanding an independent commission to investigate.
Richard Blumenthal, senator for Connecticut, urged the embattled
attorney general to return to the Senate judiciary committee to
“testify under oath” about the conversation at his office with
Kislyak.
“I’d like him to
explain what was said during that September 8 meeting,” Blumenthal
told MSNBC’s Morning Joe program. “And what came of it, and also
what other meetings there may have been, because if he misled us as
to that meeting, what other meetings might he also have failed to
disclose?”
The congressman Adam
Schiff, the top Democrat on the House intelligence committee, has
called for Sessions to quit, saying he “clearly misled” the
Senate about contacts with Russian officials, and demanded that a
special prosecutor be appointed.
Schiff also accused
the FBI director, James Comey, of withholding crucial information
about its investigation into Russian meddling in the election, and
raised the prospect of subpoenaing the agency.
“I would say at
this point we know less than a fraction of what the FBI knows,” the
California Democrat told reporters after a briefing with Comey. “I
appreciate we had a long briefing and testimony from the director
today, but in order for us to do our investigation in a thorough and
credible way, we’re gonna need the FBI to fully cooperate, to be
willing to tell us the length and breadth of any counterintelligence
investigations they are conducting. At this point, the director was
not willing to do that.”
Speaking to Fox News
on Thursday evening, Sessions, a former senator from Alabama,
reiterated that he did not discuss the campaign with Kislyak. “When
I campaigned for Trump, I was not involved with anything like that,”
he said. “You can be sure.”
Despite the
conclusions of US intelligence agencies, Sessions refused to say
whether Putin favoured Trump over Hillary Clinton in the presidential
race. “I have never been told that,” he told the host, Tucker
Carlson. “I don’t have any idea, Tucker – you’d have to ask
them.”
Trump has
consistently denied business or political ties with Russia but has
also been conspicuously reluctant to criticise Putin and raised the
prospect of reviewing sanctions against the country. Opponents argue
there is circumstantial evidence that Trump colluded with Moscow to
help his campaign but definitive proof has remained elusive.
Last month Trump’s
national security adviser, Michael Flynn, was forced to resign amid
controversy over his discussions with Kislyak in late December.
On Thursday, it
emerged that Kushner joined Flynn at a private meeting with the
ambassador at Trump Tower in New York. Another campaign aide, Carter
Page, did not deny meeting Kislyak during the Republican national
convention. And the Wall Street Journal reported that Trump’s son,
Donald Jr, was probably paid at least $50,000 for an appearance late
last year at a French thinktank whose founder and wife have strong
ties to Russia.
Trump, meanwhile,
said that Sessions was the target of a “witch-hunt” and declared
his “total” confidence in him.
He tweeted: “This
whole narrative is a way of saving face for Democrats losing an
election that everyone thought they were supposed to win. The
Democrats are overplaying their hand. They lost the election, and now
they have lost their grip on reality.”
Serguei
Kisliak, diplomata simpático ou espião amigo da equipa de Trump?
O
embaixador russo em Washington é descrito como alguém "discreto,
cordial e modesto", mas também "cínico, obstinado e
inflexível". Após a demissão de Michael Flynn e a revelação
dos contactos que com ele manteve o Procurador-geral norte-americano,
está na ribalta.
Rita Siza
RITA SIZA 3 de Março
de 2017, 21:19
Os convites para as
festas do embaixador russo em Washington, Serguei Kisliak, costumavam
ser cobiçados. Eram, por norma, repastos “extraordinários” de
cinco pratos de cozinha de fusão russa, na mansão de estilo
Beaux-Arts, que impressionavam os convidados e facilitavam o convívio
e as trocas de ideias – e de informação. Esse era, segundo o
embaixador, o seu trabalho: “O que eu faço é falar com pessoas e
representar o meu país. Eu tento compreender o que se passa, e
ajudar a Rússia”, explicou Kisliak num seminário na universidade
de Stanford, um dia depois das eleições presidenciais americanas.
Mas agora que o nome
de Kisliak se tornou sinónimo de “kryptonite”, serão poucos os
intervenientes políticos de Washington a querer frequentar as suas
funções, ou a responder às suas chamadas. A sua substituição
estará, aliás, iminente, garantem os media norte-americanos, que
especulam sobre a sua pretensa vida-dupla como espião, responsável
pela recruta de “informadores” para a agência russa SVR. E tudo
por causa das revelações – e alegações – de contactos e
ligações suspeitas entre membros da equipa de campanha e da
Administração de Donald Trump e o regime de Vladimir Putin, de quem
(aparentemente) Kisliak nem é muito próximo.
O nome do embaixador
é o elemento em comum nas notícias que deram origem à demissão do
general Michael Flynn, afastado do cargo de conselheiro de segurança
nacional da Casa Branca, e que obrigaram o Procurador-geral, Jeff
Sessions, a pedir escusa do acompanhamento de todas as investigações
e processos, actuais e futuros, relativos à campanha eleitoral de
2016 ou às ligações entre o universo Trump e a Rússia. Os dois
guardaram segredo sobre as suas reuniões com o diplomata russo, um
veterano do Ministério dos Negócios Estrangeiros (russo e
soviético) com décadas de experiência em missões internacionais –
e que, confirmou entretanto a Administração Trump, também
conversou a sós com Jared Kushner, o genro do Presidente que foi
nomeado conselheiro político da Casa Branca (o encontro decorreu na
Trump Tower de Nova Iorque, onde o russo entrou pelas traseiras) e
com dois responsáveis da campanha de Donald Trump, J.D. Gordon e
Carter Page.
Esquecimentos ou
intimidade?
“É inexplicável
que tantas pessoas que tiveram reuniões com o representante russo já
não se lembrem”, observava esta sexta-feira a analista e
comentadora política da NBC Nicolle Wallace. “A equipa desta
Administração ou é a mais esquecida da História ou é aquela com
maior intimidade com a Rússia”, completou. Em Moscovo, estes
comentários são prova da “russofobia rampante” nos EUA, uma
“histeria anti-Rússia”, como tem escrito a imprensa estatal.
Para Trump, tudo o que tem a ver com a Rússia é fake news. Para o
ministro dos Negócios Estrangeiros da Rússia, Serguei Lavrov, o
furor em torno do embaixador Serguei Kisliak parece “reminiscente
da caça às bruxas da era que já pensávamos ultrapassada do
macartismo”.
Tanto Moscovo como
Washington estão interessados em desligar o holofote que, de
repente, segue todos os movimentos de Sergei Kisliak, que apesar de
ser um homem corpulento é, dizem todas as biografias, o paradigma da
discrição, cordialidade e modéstia. Aos 66 anos, é um dos mais
influentes elementos do corpo diplomático russo; porém, é
reservado no seu protagonismo – o lugar dele é “sempre nos
bastidores”, nunca no palco, que deixa para os políticos, contou à
ABC o antigo embaixador norte-americano na Rússia, John Beyrle.
Os diplomatas
ocidentais que o conhecem e trabalharam com ele não poupam elogios à
sua inteligência e competência. “Tem uma boa reputação, de
homem pragmático e que resolve problemas, e é dos diplomatas menos
polémicos que conheci”, disse à NBC o antigo embaixador e
representante dos EUA na NATO, Alexander Vershbow. “Quando falamos
com ele, sabemos que ele está a transmitir exactamente a posição
de Moscovo, e que vai reportar fielmente o teor da conversa”,
acrescenta ao USA Today Derek Chollet, que trabalhou no Pentágono e
na Casa Branca de Obama.
Ao mesmo tempo,
notam como ele também é “cínico, obstinado e inflexível. “Tem
uma mentalidade muito soviética, e era muito agressivo com os
Estados Unidos”, lembrou ao The New York Times o ex-subsecretário
de Estado Nicholas Burns, que negociou com Kisliak três resoluções
do Conselho de Segurança da ONU para impor sanções ao Irão (o
russo é especialista em matérias de controlo de armamento e
proliferação nuclear). De resto, a sua biografia é esparsa:
formado no Instituto de Engenharia Física de Moscovo, ingressou
depois na Academia de Comércio Externo da União Soviética e entrou
para o serviço diplomático. É casado, tem uma filha e fala
fluentemente francês e inglês.
Profundo conhecedor
dos Estados Unidos, e mexe-se bem em Washington, onde está colocado
há nove anos como embaixador da Rússia (e por onde já tinha
passado antes, entre 1985 e 89, quando a embaixada ainda era da União
Soviética). Além disso, ocupou alguns dos postos mais importantes
da diplomacia, na NATO e nas Nações Unidas.
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